Tuesday, September 08, 2009

Welcome, beautiful traveler. I greet you with a bit of the spring taken out of my step.

A few days ago, in another forum, I let myself be egged into saying a mean thing. I knew as I said it that it was a mistake, and yet I somehow bought into the delusion that expressing my frustrations in a mean way would make me feel better. Other people had been saying plenty of mean things, and crazy things as well, and I let myself get dragged into it, trying to show them what was what.

Predictably, the whole thing ended up with me feeling even more frustrated, disgusted, and angry than ever, but with the added benefit of feeling guilty and entirely foolish as well.

I relearn this lesson every once in a while: that it is the particular talent of real evil to suck even well-intentioned people into a vortex of anger until they find themselves infuriated with one another even though there's no good reason for it. It's a stupid thing, once you're in that vortex, to swim deeper into it. But at least in that instance, you have the excuse of already having your judgment clouded.

Far stupider is to stand outside that vortex, see the raging blatherers within it, and then dive in to tell them how ridiculous they're being.

Thank you, goddess of love -- not for the first time and probably not for the last -- for humbling lessons.

About Me

When I realized that agnosticism wasn't exactly buoying me up through life, I decided to invent my own religion. I figure it worked for Buddha, and that guy was totally depressed even though he was some kind of prince or something.
Anyway, it's had its ups and downs so far, but overall it's going pretty well.